Tag: Change

It’s Tradition

tradition  1. the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc. from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or practice  2. something that is handed down  3. a long established or inherited way of thinking or acting  4. a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices  5. a customary or characteristic method or manner  6. in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, unwritten codes, laws, doctrines, teachings, sayings, acts, etc. regarded as handed down from Moses, Jesus, Muhammad.

  With respect for all our traditions, please notice that a tradition can and may be correct or mistaken, right or wrong, good or bad.
   Usually when a law or regulation is changed, we get used to the change and obey it, even though we may not think that the change was a good idea and personally liked the old one better.
   But, when it comes to traditions, we’re not so easily accepting of change—in fact it often seems that the very idea of deliberately changing a tradition is almost contradictory in itself!
   However, actually our traditions do change but usually gradually and imperceptibly (and sometimes mistakenly as well).
   For example,
   – What’s the proper skirt length for a well-dressed woman?
   – If I say, “Thank you”, and you reply, “No problem”, is that polite or inappropriate?
   – Is missing Mass on Sunday without an adequate reason a mortal sin for which you could burn in the fires of Hell forever?
   – Should a man greet another man with a kiss on the cheek?
   – Could a woman be elected president?
   – Is Heaven only for my coreligionists or can any good person end up there?

   – Is it wrong to use contraceptives?
   – If it’s written in the Bible, it must be always true, no matter who, what, or when.
   – If Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Latin, why should the Mass be in Latin?
   – Shouldn’t real Americans be Republicans? Democrats? Liberals? Conservatives?
   – Shouldn’t the man be head of the family?
   – The U.S. should keep out aliens, foreigners, socialists, communists, gays, Africans, Asians, Latins, etc.
   – Is gender a matter of anatomy? social customs? upbringing? personal preference?
   Excuse this smorgasbord listing of odd examples, but I’m trying to illustrate that traditions have changed or are changing, and are changing more rapidly than we sometimes realize.
   Why? Because of growth and development, individually and collectively, we are always encountering new challenges, ideas, experiences, and understandings. To be alive involves change, non-stop until the end of our lives.
   We no long believe that the earth is flat, that we live in the center of the universe. We no longer believe in many gods, and for many, in any god. Our notions of right and wrong, virtue and sin, evolve with the course of history and our individual lives. Our capacity for rapid exchange of information and communication is phenomenal—and often misleading.
   Sometimes, it’s because we can’t keep up, because we can’t process so much so fast, that we fall back on and cling to “traditions”.
   Our heritages are our legacies not our laws, our gifts not our obligations, our memories not our futures.
   Respect traditions, surely, but also live!


19 September 2021

Look Where You’re Going!

Look out! Look ahead! Look back! Look what you did! Look lively! Look what you’re leaving behind! Look what’s in front of you!
   There are so many “looks” in our lives that there’s no possibility of doing all of them, but we to tend to favor one or another direction.
   Getting older, the temptation may be to indulge in a lot of looking back. It can be kind of negative if it’s a matter of bewailing the past. “I used to be able to …” or “I wish I could … again” or “Things used to be so great a long time ago”.
   On the other hand, it can be very positive, when we recall with pleasure, joy, gratitude, and thanksgiving the wonderful experiences or blessings we’ve enjoyed over the course of our lives.
   But, even getting older, we still are challenged to and need to look ahead. How sad it is to fear tomorrow and to do our best to keep our head in the sand.
   If we are living a life of faith, we have great expectations and even an impatient yearning for the future. Alas for us, if we can’t see anything ahead of us and have closed eyes and no hopes for tomorrow.
   Looking back from time to time to celebrate happy events, accomplishments, and achievements is only natural and a source of satisfaction and happiness—but it’s no excuse for not looking ahead.
   If we live, we are in forward motion. It’s shear folly to close our eyes and grit our teeth like one with no future at all. Look around all you want, but no matter what, don’t forget to look ahead!
   If you can’t see anything on your own when you try to look ahead, look for someone who can see to guide you on your way, dog or human!
   And, of course, it goes without saying that asking for help from the One who always knows the way forward ensures making headway in spite of all our limitations.

   Be careful not to confuse looking ahead with knowing what’s ahead. Looking ahead is a matter of hope and discerning our direction—but we don’t actually entirely know what’s ahead of us until we get there.
   Not looking ahead means we’re abandoning responsibility for our own future. We’re not bothering to try to control the course of our lives, we’re simply drifting and passively accepting whatever transpires.
   Each of us is a free agent. We’re free to speculate, imagine, seek, set goals, work to achieve them or just drift through life or allow our course to be set or influenced by others and their decisions.
   We all once lived like this, at least for a while. It’s called infancy or early childhood and was appropriate for a brief period many years ago, but not anymore.
   We’re not a 007, licensed to kill, but we are accredited by God, licensed to live. If we deliberately stunt our growth, if we bind ourselves tightly with behaviors that prevent us from developing, if we pretend that one stage of our lives was the best and only one and cling to it dearly, we are opting for blindness, deafness, immobility, and dying.

   O Lord, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar.
   My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar…
   Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where I can flee?…
   If I take the winds of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
   Even there your hand shall guide me, and your right hand hold me fast.
   (Psalm 139:1-3,7,9-10)

8 August 2021

Expansive in Folly, Limited in Sense

Solomon finally slept with his fathers,
   and left behind him one of his sons,
Expansive in folly, limited in sense,
   Rehoboam, who by his policy made the people rebel;
   (Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach) 47:23a)

   “Expansive in folly, limited in sense.”
   What a blunt summary of the life of the third ruler of the united kingdom of Judah and Israel, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, son of David.
   They weren’t a dynasty of angels. David, hailed in tradition as the greatest king of Israel, the very prototype of the good king, was an enterprising young man, a military tactician, a renowned battle leader, fighter and killer.
   He also was a man who contrived to sleep with the wife of one of his officers, Uriah, who was away on active duty. And, later finding her pregnant, he ordered that her husband should be placed in the front line of a major attack and then abandoned to die there.
   When his bastard child died, David repented, and God forgave him. He married the widow, Bathsheba, and fathered another child with her, Solomon, who ultimately succeeded him.
   Solomon ruled a peaceful, united kingdom. He went down in history as the prototype of the wise man, but he also was a womanizer, who for political reasons introduced pagan worship into his kingdom to satisfy some of his many foreign wives.
   With the ascent of his son Rehoboam, the briefly united kingdom began to fracture and fail. There’s not much said about him in the Bible beyond the brief summary, “Expansive in folly, limited in sense.”
   David and Solomon also had their follies, misjudgments, mistakes, and failures—but at least they regretted, repented, and amended their ways.

   The morals of this little history are many, but one thing stands out—that nobody is perfect, always gets things right, doesn’t make stupid and even destructive decisions.
   However, some people do come to their senses, realize that they have failed or damaged others, and change. They admit their mistakes and strive to do better.
   Every idolized human person has clay feet. Short of divine intervention, of a special act of God, no one is faultless, and sometimes the faults are major, monumental, and their unintended consequences may live on and can’t be remedied.
   We would need superhuman wisdom and strength never to fail. Everyone’s biography has sections we’d love to edit away. But our failures are not the ultimate measure and judgment of our lives, no matter how great or consequential they may be.
   In this regard, St. Paul’s message to the Corinthians is consoling (1 Co 1:25-31):

   Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

1 August 2021

Time’s Up

One way of describing life is growing and changing. Maybe it should only be changing, because growing, at least in the bodily sense, slows down and stops after a while.
   But growing in the senses of thinking, understanding, improving, bettering, accomplishing, and achieving can continue long after physical growth ends and even while physically we are declining and diminishing.
   Death means the end of all growth and development, at least as we know and experience them now. But, in a spiritual dimension, we may believe and trust that they continue in some other, yet to be experienced, way.
   We sometimes joke about the incessant questioning of little children: Why is this? Where does it come from? How does it work? etc. That means they’re growing in terms of knowledge and understanding.
   Hopefully, they will never stop questioning, never stop challenging, never stop growing in their thinking and understanding.
   If they, if we, do reach a certain stage of life where we no longer question, challenge, grow, or change in our thinking and understanding, we are, so to speak, dying or dead!
   It’s odd. We esteem and acclaim explorers, discoverers, inventors, scientists, artists, and innovators in many areas and aspects of our life but criticize dissidents, eccentrics, oddballs, nonconformists, and “heretics” (in its original meaning of people of different opinion) in others.
   In the unending quest for knowledge and understanding, we sometimes get it right and we sometimes get it wrong—but, the main thing is to never stop trying. There’s nothing wrong in making mid-course corrections in the way we live our lives.
   We’re not perfect, infallible, nor omniscient.

   No matter how much we may achieve, how much we may understand, how much we may sacrifice, how much we may love, how much others may respond to us, it will never be enough and we will never be fully satisfied.
   This is all part of the human condition. There’s no sense in lamenting the deficiencies of our past or the limitations of our present. It’s rare to learn to skate without falling down, to learn to do anything new without getting it wrong from time to time.
   The very essence of our lives is growing and changing. If fear of mistakes or failures holds us back from growing or changing, we gradually are living in an unreality; we are gradually dying in more ways than one.
   The greatest challenge for each of us is to learn to celebrate, rejoice, and have gladness, peace, and satisfaction in our lives—in our limited, ever changing, and imperfect lives.
   Especially we need to remember, know and be grateful for the understanding, empathy, support, and love we have received throughout our lives from others—and above all from the One who created us, whose mercy and love is without limits, and whose providence sustains and guides our lives.
   Let us pray, imitating St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost;
to fight and not to heed the wounds;
to toil and not to seek for rest;
to labor and not to seek any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

 

25 July 2021

Imperfect Societies

Imagination knows no bounds. We can imagine things that may never have been and may never be. If we strive to attain what we imagine, we may make progress but may also never attain our goal completely.
   In 1516 Thomas More wrought a book, Utopia, about an imaginary island where everything was almost perfect. But “utopian” now means a vision of things so idealistic that it is almost a dream and unrealistic.
   Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that aspiring to be or to make things better and better is not a good thing, but realistically perfection is never attainable.
   A very popular notion in ecclesiology before and even during much of the last century was that of the perfect society.
   The perfect society had basic institutions and structures to ensure the common good, protection of rights, and justice; it included legislative, administrative, and judicial institutions.
   A popular teaching in the once Christian part of the world was that there are only two perfect societies, the State and the Church.
   Why in the world was the Church identified as on a par with the State? Perhaps it had to do with the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire which left the Church as a quasi-governmental force and institution in central Italy, the Papal States
   Perhaps it was the influence of books of the Bible that describe the history of the Jewish people as a nation of believers ruled and guided by God, often speaking through prophets and priests.
   The Church’s role became entangled with government’s. The Church had its own laws, rules, and regulations; mechanisms for teaching and enforcement; and penalties.
   Although early Christianity was tormented and rejected by the civil society, the Roman Empire, it gradually became the imperial state religion and the Church wielded great power in many countries.

   Is there still room for such a role of the Church? Should the Church have a system of laws and punishments as the State does? Should the clergy in varying degrees be a ruling class
   You know, it was only as recent as a little over 50 years ago, when Pope St. Paul VI, rejecting this, eliminated the papal coronation and the triple crown itself
   It may seem strange and hard to imagine for us now-a-days, but the classic conclusion to a formal letter to a pope used to close with, “humbly prostrate and kissing the sacred purple…”
   To what extent should the Church regulate the conditions for and validity of marriages? Clearly the Church may place preconditions before choosing to bless and recognize a marriage. But, the legal regulation of marriages in contemporary societies is seen as the role of the State
   The State can and does set conditions for recognizing the existence of a marriage and for ceasing to recognize it. But the heart of any marriage is the mutual consent of the parties, no matter the recognition or not by Church or State.
   Thanks be to God the days of Church trials and deadly punishments are long gone—think of Joan of Arc—but the tendency to judge and even publicly punish its members still lingers.
   As we study history, hopefully we learn from the mistakes of the past—which, considering the state of the past world and of human knowledge and experience in bygone days, were understandable.
   I’m glad I’m not as deaf, dumb, and blind as I once was. There may still be a chance for me after all!


4 July 2021

Snapshot or Motion Picture?

A perfect, crystal clear image of me—whether ordinary photograph or x-ray—can show many things about how I am at the exact moment the image was made. But, a perfect, crystal clear image doesn’t tell anything about trajectory or motion.
   – a snapshot taken outdoors in dim light may have been taken as day is breaking or as night is falling.
   – an x-ray showing a malignancy could indicate an improvement in a previous condition or a worsening depending on the previous picture.
   – what you said or what you wrote might be astoundingly insightful or disappointingly ordinary in comparison with general knowledge of the topic or what you had said or written before.
   It reminds me of the kid’s game, Statues, where, when whoever is It turns his or her back, all the other players try to advance to tag that person, but whenever he or she turns all the others must freeze in their positions. Whoever fails to completely freeze must go back to the starting position again.
   To be living means to be constantly changing, in motion. To be totally and in every way immobile is to be dead.
   If you really want to get to know me better (or I, you), you need more than a snapshot. You need to know where I’m coming from—my origins, my starting point, the roads I’ve traveled, the time and resources I’ve spent to get where I am, something of my adventures and misadventures—and, of course, you need to know where I’m headed or seem to be heading.
   If you want to judge me, it’s harder still precisely because I’m always changing. Our lives involve an endless series of mid-course corrections. I can make a tentative assessment of you—take a snapshot—at any given moment, but final judgement needs the completion of your life.
   There’s no winner till the battle’s over!

   The many snapshots of our lives are helpful, but just one picture tells little—we need points of comparison. The “motion pictures” of our lives are much better—even though they can vary depending on from what angle or point they may be shot.
   It’s impossible to make a final judgement until the film is complete and we’ve seen, understood, and assessed all of it. Also, even in this there are variations. We all may watch the same film, and have very different levels of contentment or discontentment about it.
   The only one capable of absolute judgement is the Knower of all things
   When someone is canonized a saint, it doesn’t mean that the person is adjudged perfect or without failing, faults, or sin. But it does mean that the person has been outstanding in many ways and is being held up for the rest of us as a model to be imitated—but, naturally, not in every detail.
   Role models help us on our life’s way. It gives us courage when we can see the achievements of another just like ourselves—and it also encourages us to see their successes in spite of their failings.
   What a strange world we live in these days, where we are so morbidly fascinated by the failings of others that we focus on them in spite of what clearly were their many successes and achievements.
   What strange judgements we make, denying some evidence, exaggerating other, and totally forgetting the limitations of any and all premature judgements.
   Don’t forget,
   “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone…” and
   “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”


27 June 2021

Don’t Stunt Your Growth

That was a warning I remember hearing from time to time when I was a kid to discourage certain behaviors, whether it involved eating, drinking, smoking, or something else.
   The presumption was that growth was a good thing and it was foolish to impede it.
   I have some friends (of modest height) whose children are much taller than they are, probably because the parents grew up in another country with a less healthy childhood diet. But they’re glad to see their kids growing taller and stronger than they are.
   Intellectual development is similar to the physical. Often children with better and more extensive schooling than their parents have better opportunities for the future.
   Generally mothers and fathers are not jealous of their children’s achievements and successes but proud of them. Of course, it’s because they consider their children’s growth and development as a good thing.
   However, in some matters, it’s just the opposite. If the children’s religious beliefs and practices change as they grow and develop, often the parents are distressed.
   Sometimes it may seem to the parents that their children are ignoring or abandoning vital elements in their religious life. Perhaps they are—or perhaps they’re simply outgrowing certain ethnic or cultural customs and practices.
   For example, is it so bad if a young person is keenly concerned about working for justice and peace but not so worried about missing a Mass on Sunday or praying the rosary?
   Growth, growing, involves change—not necessarily an abandonment of what we once were but a development, a maturation.
   St. Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” (1 Cor 13:11)

   Why sometimes are we so threatened by putting aside and outgrowing things from an earlier stage of our lives? Why sometimes do we defend and cling too long to past ways and thinking?
   Not every change in advocating and reasoning is necessarily an improvement or a positive development, but denying their validity and refusing to consider them isn’t necessarily an improvement or a positive development either.
   There was another warning I remember hearing from time to time when I was a kid: Don’t talk about politics or religion.
   Probably, this was because of the lived experience of those warning us about how delicate and personal these matters were.
   Right now, especially in the U.S., there is a painful polarization and division in both these areas—and the solution is not to be silent and do nothing.
   If in either of these areas we’re talking, thinking, or reasoning “as a child”—i.e. clinging too much to earlier ideas—we need to put aside childish things.
   It’s a don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater situation. The best course of action is not necessarily to cling to and defend every past thing or practice, but to discern what is good and perennial from the limited understandings and decisions of a particular group or time.
   Our roots are more important than the details of a branch. Our fundamental values merit our defense, but not necessarily every decision, plan, program, ruling, or behavior once inspired by them.
   The child and the adult are fundamentally the same person—but in the process of growing necessarily many things change.


6 June 2021

Dated Dogmas

Dogma: 1. An official system of principles or tenets concerning faith, morals, behavior, etc.
   2. A specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down.
   3. Prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group.
   4. A settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

   “Dogma” comes from the Greek verb “dokein”, which can mean to expect, think, seem, seem good, or pretend.
   The way we use the word now has more the flavor of something fixed, permanent, definitive, binding, unchangeable.
   But nothing human can be that. If each of us is less than perfect—and we are—than the best we can do is to declare what seems to us to be good or correct, according to our lights, at a particular moment
   No dogma can fit every possible situation and no dogma can preclude the possibility of being dated, divisive, or even destructive at another time or in another place.
   Even the very understanding of dogmas develops and changes.
   Since dogmas often are concerned with religious beliefs and practices, let’s look at how they play out.
   First, things—events—happen, But even participants and eyewitnesses differ in their telling about them, and their solemn testimony about them, and their writing about them. Again, human limitations at play.
   Second, with the passage of time, the stories, histories, and traditions passed on themselves change and sometimes are revised and altered.
   Consider the Bible. There are many places where you can find more than one version of events, conversations, and conflicts—sometimes in the very same book!

   One inspired author writes from one point of view, and another, from another. It’s not about who is right and who is wrong—it’s about a complex reality bigger than any one person’s understanding or communication.
   Besides this diversity, with the passage of time further insights occur, more facts are uncovered about the earlier period, and perhaps a greater appreciation of the achievements of the earlier persons and their points of view develops.
   As the diversities increase, so does a discomfort with them. There is a desire for some clear definitions of meaning and some clear standards of practice. In effect, it often means that persons in authority respond to this desire with dogma.
   And, then gradually, diversity in the understanding and application of the dogma develops as well. There’s no stopping it!
   Since we human persons are necessarily limited, no human work or construction is ever perfect, and change and development always lead to new understandings, articulations, and norms.
   Dogmatic diversity in some sense is almost a contradiction in terms, and dogmatic development can be frightening and challenging to its partisans. But, life is about change and development, and that means that education, technology, governance, behavioral standards, faith, religion, science, philosophy, theology—all things that involve human beings—involve change and development!
   We sometimes say, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Maybe we should also say, “Better to embrace change and development than to bewail the loss of our comfortable, earlier certainties.”


18 April 2021      

Changing the Name or Renaming the Change?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
In Shakespeare’s play, these words of Juliet referred to the challenge of her love for Romeo even though he bore the name and was a member of an enemy family.
In many countries, the practice has been that upon her wedding the wife changes her family name to that of her husband—and in some places even moves into the dwelling place of her husband’s family. But, name notwithstanding, she’s still the same person.
When it comes to politics, there’s a lot of changing names for the same old same old, although once in a while there really is a real change—whether it gets a new name or not!
And, what do names in politics mean, after all? Does Republican mean a believer in a republic or just a partisan supporter of a particular group? Does Democrat mean a believer in a democracy or just a partisan supporter of a particular group?
Are Liberals advocates of freedom? Are Communists crusaders for the community? Are Radicals trying to get back to the root of things? Are Reactionaries fond of redoing some of the things that worked before? Are Conservatives trying to conserve the best of the past?
In education, when someone has completed a certain amount of studies, he or she gets a new title—which isn’t always used. We don’t call a college graduate “Bachelor” nor someone with a few more post-graduate years of schooling “Master”, but frequently we do refer to someone with even more studies and skills as “Doctor”.
In religion, we call some celibates “Father” even though they’re not one; we call others “Pastor” even without a flock of sheep; and “Bishops” aren’t always good overseers (that’s what the title means). And, why do Catholics call some of them “Monsignor” (meaning “My Lord”)? Good Lord, none of them are Lords, even if some act like they are!

“Clothes make the man.” We often confuse being well-dressed with being successful or wealthy or important—but there’s no necessary connection with any of them
The reverse is true, too. The Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military is the president, but he has no impressive uniform at all. Modern royalty only uses distinctive clothing for special and ceremonial occasions. Most people with academic degrees rarely wear the robes after receiving the degree.
The point is that changing a name, title, form of address, or dress doesn’t necessarily mean a changed person or position or place—although sometimes it really does!
You can’t judge a book by its cover. A new job title doesn’t necessarily mean a raise in salary. Consultation is not the same as agreement. Being legally married doesn’t guarantee love—and vice-versa! “I see” doesn’t necessarily mean I really do.
A song from My Fair Lady is apropos:

Words. Words. Words.
   I’m so sick of words.
   I get words all day through,
   First from him, now from you.
   Is that all you blighters can do?
Don’t talk of stars,
   Burning above!
   If you’re in love;
   Show me!
Tell me no dreams
   Filled with desire!
   If you’re on fire,
   Show me! . . .

People change, for better or worse. Beware of not recognizing the change because the name’s the same!


14 February 2021

Just Imagine

Imagination usually refers to the ability to create mental images of things that do not yet exist and hypothetical future scenarios that could exist. It’s a vital ingredient of creativity.
Creative imagination is a necessary component of every field of human endeavor and the inspiration for invention and innovation.
What would science, art, philosophy or theology be like without it? Without it, persons, families, societies, and institutions may decline, wither, and lose vitality.
Imagination is fundamentally a good, although we can imagine good things or bad things, good scenarios or bad ones. Imagination can be at the root of great innovations and of great destructions.
But, oh how sad and confining it is not to have a lively imagination, not to be creative nor innovative, not to be inspiring or ground-breaking.
And, in spite of every effort to do so, you can’t ban or control imagination. Nothing is unthinkable, even though many choices, activities, and deeds may be turn out to be inappropriate, regrettable, harmful, or destructive.
In many sectors of life, there have been failed attempts to control information, beliefs, interactions, freedoms, and creativity—they’re often bad and ultimately unsuccessful.
Let’s be a little imaginative in some areas of religious practice . . . and remembering that just because a thing never happened doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t.
– Married clergy: Can priests or ministers be married? Of course? From the beginning of Christianity, married men have been ordained priests in the Eastern churches, both Catholics and Orthodox, There certainly have been married men with leading ministerial roles in many Christian churches for many years.

– Female clergy: Can women be priests? In some branches of Christianity the practice is already well established. Can women be bishops? (Same answer.) Imagine a woman as a cardinal. Why not? A cardinal is a papal elector. Could a woman be pope?
– Sabbath observance: Christians are church-centered in their worship. Observant Jews are home and family centered. Can Christian observance be more like the Jewish? Imagine the head of a family leading a weekly eucharistic (Thanksgiving) ceremony at home.
– Marriage: Marriage involves a mutual choice and bonding of persons and traditionally has to do with having and raising a family. If the choice and bonding don’t exist anymore, does the marriage exist? What does it take for the civil authority to acknowledge that it is over? What should it take for the ecclesiastical authority to do the same? Should they?
– Human sexuality: Is it or should it be restricted to marriage? Is it by nature or should it be limited to acts of mating or procreation? Should sexual bonding be allowed to persons of the same sex? What about same-sex marriage?
– Respect life: Do we respect a right to life of the baby in the womb? When can a war be just? What about assisting suicide? Capital punishment? How do we strike a balance in a divided and pluralistic society? Can morality be legislated?
– Justice issues: Do I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all? Am I or should I be concerned about legislative oversight and support for these values?
Just imagine a little what could, should, shouldn’t, or might happen.


24 January 2021